Louisiana’s time to shine

Monday

Jan 28, 2013 at 8:08 PM

It’s difficult to turn on ESPN this week without seeing live shots of New Orleans.

It’s difficult to turn on ESPN this week without seeing live shots of New Orleans.The same is true of various other media outlets, which are in Louisiana to cover the Super Bowl or at least some of the hype surrounding it.As the week goes on, there will be reports from the two teams’ headquarters and more and more shots of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome — the center of the activity and the site of the big game.If you go to New Orleans between now and Sunday, you will see some recently added structures, TV sets built for on-site broadcasts leading up to the Super Bowl.You will also see a huge number of visitors in town for the game. There are tens of thousands of fans and journalists who are going to the game.Altogether, the event is giving the city and the entire region attention and recognition that money simply cannot buy.This is always a happy side-effect of hosting the Super Bowl. But since Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 BP oil spill, getting good, healthy images of New Orleans and Louisiana out to the nation has become critical.Even the people who might know that our region has largely recovered from both disasters are still far too familiar with the terrible images of grief and suffering that were all-too-familiar immediately after them.It is crucial for our tourist-dependent region of the state that potential tourists think of us for swamp tours, beignets, Bourbon Street and Super Bowls, not for oiled beaches and scenes of mayhem.It sounds silly to people who are familiar with Louisiana and its recent triumphs and tragedies, but for people in New York or Los Angeles, images can linger long past when they were accurate depictions of what was happening.The Super Bowl puts our state’s best-known city on a stage before the world. And we all come out better for that attention.Then there is the money.The amount of sales taxes collected from Super Bowl visitors is hefty, and that money is spent all around the state, not just in New Orleans.When millions are spent in the Crescent City, the benefits are spread to all of Louisiana. And this is one of those times.Some tend to think of the Super Bowl as a sporting event, but it is so much more than that.It is a spotlight on New Orleans and Louisiana, and we are ready for our close-up.

Editorials represent the opinions ofthe newspaper, not of any individual.

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